Does anybody know of any GOOD front mount USB devices for a 5.25" bay? I DO NOT WANT one that includes a 5.25" to 3.5" adaptor, I have ENOUGH 3.5" bays in my full tower case, I just want to be able to plug in massive USB devices to the front of my computer. . ..
Bleh.
:(
The ONLY solution to this problem that I have been able to figure out so far would be to mount a regular old USB hub in one of the bays with some screws and some very careful drilling into the Hub itself (I have found some Hubs that are of about the right size and would fit in a 5.25" bay just nicely) but this is far from optimal. . ..
I mean WTF am I supposed to do with a shitpot load of USB ports AND NO DAMN WAY TO ACCESS THEM. Well except for from behind my case, but already I have WAAAY to many wires back there and it is a royal pain in the arse to have to reach back around behind my computer and try and grope for something remotly resembling a USB port to plug some device in to. . . . It would be nice to be able to actualy see the port. ^_^
For many animals are not a mere luxury item, they are something that people... NEED. Especially in the case of the elderly, were an animal companion can easily be the reason to go on living. The fact that somebody else, someone else, even something else, needs you.
Of course many people these days have been raised to be completely self serving and thus have little if any knowledge of the warmth and joy that comes from helping another fellow living being. These people obviously do not benefit from animals and consider them a nuisance at best and in the worst cases even abuse them.
http://messybeast.com/emoticat.html is rather nice in that at least it admits that there is the potential that the more complex human emotions merely stem from the more basic simple emotions that all of the more advanced forms of mammals have. (That is by personal belief, as all complex human emotions can be traced directly down to their primitive roots with very little work).
You said that human emotions are the luxury of our advanced civilization, well after so many millennia of domestication, could not other animals have also developed more sophisticated emotions over time?
(well it is either that or they just spend a lot of time sleeping, take your pick.:) )
Damnit now I want to run home and play with my dog, ugh. Classes in an hour so that is not an option.:(
When I was not but a small newborn babe, my family had a dog named Sady.
When ever it would be that I would cry, Sady would come over and lick my face to cheer me up. If that failed, then she would go and alert my (likely already busy making up a bottle or such) Mother and attempt to drag her over to my side so as to comfort me.
When a friend of the family came over one time and picked me up and threw me in the air (and caught me) Sady immediately jumped up and bared her teeth at the person, threatening him with harm should he attempt to (in her mind) threaten me again.
Later on in years I had a wonderful Cat. Whenever I would cry the Cat (I am omitting names from this point on so as to limit possibly identifying myself) would come over and sit on my lap or come up and wipe the tears from my face. If I was sick the Cat would sit by my side and wait for my recovery.
Do not tell me that either of those wonderful creatures was uncaring or had no emotions. Any creature that is capable of giving of themselves to another, or removing themselves from their own self gratifying actions so as to comfort another, has emotion, and more then that, is a damn deal better person then most people are.
I was discussing with my family the other day the question of why Dogs and Cats are not considered Sentient species (albiet of a lower level intelligence then Humans).
One of my dogs can understand when She is being refered to by Pronouns.
Now THAT is spooky.
"Is it time for her you know what?"
::dog proceeds to run over to the biscuit box::
Shnitz!
Annnyways.
The final conclusion was that we most likely do not consider other animals besides ourselfs to be sentient because of the legal and moral ramifications that it would bring up, it would be a royal pain in the ass to deal with and most people quite frankly just do not want to deal with those types of issues.
Thus why I bought the game cube, no crappy overhyped games that can be beaten in a matter of days and yet you are expected to sit there and play for months. . ..
Though I must admit that the GC games so far are FAR shorter then their N64 counterparts, Luigi's Mansion took me about three days to beat the first time through, Super Mario 64 took me around 6 or 7 months. . . . (then again, maybe I am just better at gaming now? ^_^ )
Hell the problem is the rich dip shits who pay those workers crap for wages so as to maximize a companie's profits.
Now if companies are made to be SELF SUPPORTING and STABLE rather then be expected to grow by 2-10% every year then the situation will get a lot better.
It would require other work of course, but the FIRST STEP is to stop this entire grab for greed that everybody is so darn obsessed with.
One doctrine believes that lawyers are full of nothing but shit and hot air, which if some way was found to extract the methane from would make for at least a halfway decent fuel. (I am not overly familiar with the combustive properties of methane so I cannot say what the efficiency rate would be on this idea.)
The other side believes that lawyers are pretty much hollow psuedo-forms running around in human shape. While they would not burn, they should not weigh to much either.
Perhaps we can take up a collection. I'm sure there's a sweatshop worker in Brazil who'll be thrilled to donate to the cause. After all, you paid his salary via Nike...
Having spent a good part of my childhood living below the poverty level, not to mention that I don't go to starbucks or drink coffee at all (too expensive, waste of resources, water please), and that the only Nike shoes I have owned in years were a pair of leather boots that cost me $60 and lasted a year and a half (and thats sayin something for shoes that take as much abuse as I dole out), which were the best value that I could find;
excuse me if I think that you are full of bullshit.
The damn beancounters are the REASON that people are stuck working in sweatshops, hell, when was the last time you saw a Nerd saying "Oh yah hey thats no problem, use slave labor if it'll save us a few bucks!"
Fuck the middle / upper class, let the Nerds rise up, w00t!
Anyway. In all seriousness, I DO believe that the only halfway decent hope for a future that this already royally f'ed up planet has is to let the academics in charge, but NOT the bureaucratic ones, because bureaucrats suck, something awful. And they blow. At the same time. Yes folks, bureaucrats blow AND suck.
They need to be shot into the moon with lawyers.
Oddly enough if you let the Nerds into control you would find yourself in a Globalization style of a world rather quickly, as Nerds generally don't give a fuck about things like artificial boundaries and what not. Hell just look at the Chess masters during the Cold War. . . . ^_^
(or Scientists during almost ANY war. The idea of cutting off science journal entries and such just because somebody was on an enemy side was / is abhorrent to the large majority of Scientists.)
Anyway. That is my own personal wacko socio-political theory, what's yours?:)
This is NOT about Blizzard losing money, if you KNEW the company at all then you would know that they value the integrity of their products far more then many other companies do.
This is about a leaked beta, which Blizzard LOSING money over testing so thoroughly.
This is about Blizzard being pissed off that somebody LIED to them.
This is about TRUST between a Community and a Company.
Yah that is right, there are actual other PEOPLE on the other side of that Blizzard Entertainment name, not just some corporate suits. And these/people/ get upset when they are deceived or lied too.
If you see the Warcraft3 files online, then for crying out loud, send the person off a quick message nicely explaining how that Blizzard is a group of nice people who care about their customers and that they are not just some corporate drones who are trying to leech money from people and that would the person please remove their pirated file from share.
Now of course the message would need to be a bit longer, more explanatory, and in a friendly tone of voice then that, but all in all a message like that WOULD work.
There was actually a (short) period of time during which the pirates (or at least the crackers) and the small / independent software manufacturers had come to an agreement and people were not pirating (at least nearly as much) software from companies that believes software was to be made an actual Art form. But unfortunately the n00bs came and screwed this allll up and now we are back into the present situation of pirate everything in sight.
Which sucks.
I repeat, this is not about money, this is about integrity and that is the SOLE reason that I support Blizzard in any of this. Blizzard are a kick ass group of people who rock, a lot. They work hard, they make good products, and they CARE about their work. Anybody who cares about the integrity of what they create damn well deserves some respect.
Bah, stop using my own arguments from days past.:P
This is a debate about ARTISTS rights though, and the ARTIST has a right to how THEIR product is copied and / or shown.
Period.
Bnetd interfears with the artist's right to control the creation, it may not be the original intent of that, and indeed its original intent was to help legitimate purchasers and viewers of the art to be able to more fully enjoy the creation itself, but it has been perverted from that use.
Now then, if YOU can propose a solution to this problem which allows for Blizzard to maintain artistic control over their work and Bnetd to stay up and hangs the pirates out to dry, please be free to do so. Hell I am sure that Blizzad would be MORE then happy to save on the legal fees.
But until then this half assed stop gap measure is the best that is possible in a world full of dishonest jerks.
(this all coming from somebody who has trade in God only knows how much illegal data. . . .
"If Ford had another way of preventing theft, one that didn't feck up the world for everyone else, then I'd be all for them using that method"
You are forgeting that:
A: It is there product, they can DO whatever they want with it. I did not say that they should get laws passed demanding that ALL vechicals follow these 'standards', and indeed if you look at how Blizzard is proceeding with this case you will see that THEY ARE NOT TRYING TO CRAM LAWS DOWN EVERYBODIES THROAT
Really now, ALL that Blizzard is asking is for Control over there software. Blizzard does NOT have anything against the people who make Bnetd, they just realize that unfortunatly as long as Bnetd continues to exist that people will have an easy and free way to use products pirated from Blizzard.
A lot of things made with good intent have been subverted to being used for darkness, and in as such those items have been outlawed, good intentions or not.
We (the Nerd community in general) could easily take it back if the majority of us didn't have such damn argumentative and subservient natures.:(
I mean hell, an ORGANIZED security attack upon the infostructure of the commercial entities operating on the net, not to mention various companies that have chosen to foolishly put all of (or the majority of) their assets (employee records and such) online or on to internet routable machines would ensure a quick and swift victory over the forces of commercialism.
Of course too many potential Nerds have been taken in by the false dreams of big business and their promises to middle manage everything to perfection. The fact that VBscript is considered a 'language on the way up' is evidenced of this.
The darned thing is that an organized attack from both the inside and the outside of companies could easily either take them down or dehabilitate them for a long enough period of time to allow for open source alternatives to take a foothold. Even complete system backups would be a bit hard to retrieve if all of a companies assets had just been invested, say, Russian plutonium mines.
It is not that hard to get an agent on the inside of even a company like Microsoft either. Once access to the internal network has been gained a good deal of the security is gone, granted while I am sure that MS has good security inside of their compound itself, the fact is that a dedicated agent COULD and CAN gain complete or near complete control over their systems.
Hell Microsoft takes on numerous interns every year, often times in tech support or repair roles. Even an office lackey would have significant freedom of movement over a designated area.
Surely one or two just out of highschool Nerds can be found who have social engineering skills of some sort and reside nearby an Microsoft compound? It is not like MS has just one (though the largest goal of Redmond should of course be kept in mind.)
The the main issue at heart is really the lack of consensus amongst internet Nerds in general. Far too many have been brainwashed by the propaganda put out by the big businesses. Hell look at how many people (even on/. ) believe that the reducing the time to program something is more important then reducing the SIZE of that which is being programmed? Seriously, does anybody here even realize anymore that a fully featured word processing suite need not take up over 100megabytes? Or even over 2 megabytes? Or hell even over ONE megabyte?
Until we gain regain our consensus over such simple and in the past considered trivial issues, we will not be able to unite against the forces of those that oppose us, and in fact it could be said that those that oppose us are indeed the ones who have fragmented our groupings to begin with.
In a day in age where code can be measured in millions of lines, is it no wonder that the great society of Nerds that had been built up is so quickly falling?
We had taken (have taken, past or present. . . . and hopefully not into the future) too much pride in our creations, we tried to show them to the world, but then when they would not look we committed one of the ultimate mistakes, we tried to appeal to their greed.
We said not how computers could make life easier for all, but rather how they could 'increase worker productivity'. We said not how cancer could be cured, but rather how upgrade cycles could be created so that an industry could spring up designed soley to leech off of the artificially created need of the very market of which it had created.
And when they did not listen, nay, when they did not understand that which we had created was none less then a work of art, we instead lowered not but itself, but ourselves along with it, down to the levels of mere machinations by selling our creations off as thus. We have created our own end, and if that end is to be adverted we must create our own new beginning.
I would rather leave my bag at the front desk / entrance / or where ever when I enter a store with valuable goods in it then be watched by security cameras all over the place. *COUGH* britan *COUGH*.
Of course the third PERFERABLE alternative and the one that I am fighting for here, is that I would MUCH RATHER just beat the assholes who steal in the first place quite senseless.
(ignoring all misdeeds commited earlier then, err, say, uh, hmm. Ok well beat the snot out of people who steal software made by socialy responsable companies, how does that sound instead? Heh)
Agreed, you have the right to do WHATEVER YOU WANT to your software ON YOUR COMPUTER.
And indeed many things are allowed on your own PRIVATE property that you cannot do OFF of your private property. A person can have their 11 year old son drive around in a tractor if they want too, no problem. They can make their own lock-picking tools and practice with them day and night, hey no issues. Hell they can setup a practice range and teach their offspring how to shoot a man dead from 100 paces. Nobody gives a fuck.
But there is some stuff that you don't do in the real world.
The sale of various theft equipment in real life is quite illegal. Sure it has LEGITIMATE uses, and indeed the lesser equipment (which is in capable SKILLED hands just as capable as the more automated tools are) is legal for public sale, but if you want the automated stuff you'll have to build it yourself and NOT sell it or distribute it in any form to the public at large.
Which is quite all-right and ensures that 'idle crimes' do not rise too high if not in numbers then at least in sophistication.
Now imagine if Ford offered FREE service on all their vehicles. Period.
Now imagine that Ford had some method by which to ensure that vehicles worked on were not stolen.
Imagine were the STOLEN vehicles would be serviced at? That is right, the unauthorized service centers. Sure some (or even quite a lot) of people with LEGAL vehicles might go to the unauthorized service centers, hell maybe at times it is just more convenient, but the BEST way for Ford to (help) stop the theft of vehicles is to shutdown the unauthorized service centers.
Vehicles that can only be driven until they break down are of hardly any use, and in the case of software, well hell if ya can't play it online to begin with. . . . Who steals a car just to drive it around in circles out in their back yard?
There have been a plethora of holes in various versions of IE that have allowed unsigned activeX controls to install without the users permission, or to install under a differnt name ("want to upgrade to the latest version of Flash? Sure, ok! Enjoy some pay-for-view porn while you are at it!).
Pirates are notoriously horrid at keeping things going for an extended period of time on a regular consistent basis (with a few quasi-pirate exceptions in relationship to some nottobenamed Windows software that totalyandcompleatlyrocks).
I believe that the main goal of this is to ensure that FUTURE Blizzard titles do not have to worry about this problem.
Of course if Blizzard even TRIES to implement a pay for service system after this they are going to be ROYALY screwed. This is perhaps the ONE major limitor that Blizzard is placing upon itself by this action, they are limiting their future capability to make adjustments to their current B.net system. They wouldn't last half a second, a group of royaly pissed off users would drag out the old bnetd source code and update it to whatever level is needed.
But besides that, if the lawsuit goes through Blizzard should pretty much be worry free in relation to this particular type of threat from pirates.
Of course this STILL doesn't stop CD-KEY gens.
Unfortunatly fewer and fewer people are able to succesfuly figure out how to make Keygens as the average intelligence of software pirates seems to keep on dropping. Patchs to the executable seem to be far more popular, but those tend to disable network play more often then not, and when they do not it normaly requires a massivly large amount of work to get things that way.
Course some of us aren't so self centered as to think that we should be able to do anything that we please. . ..
The library doesn't allow drinks in it, should I say that I am offended by their accusations that I will spill water on the books I am reading?
The no bags rule does not SINGLE OUT YOU as a theif nor does it IMPLY that you are a theif, rather it simply implies that some dickheads in the past stole some books and that now the privilage has been revoked.
On the plus side there is a very low occurance of theft on this campus and I feel safe leaving my bag alone for decently long periods of time (10-20 minutes or so) even with a good amount of gear in there. Peer pressure worked to reduce on campus theft, too bad it had not come into effect sooner or bags might still be allowed in the bookroom.
Bags are not allowed in my collages book store, for precisly this reason.
And nobody complains.
Blizzard already allows A TON of freedom with their product, and indeed it is not like they are charging a monthly fee for playing their games online, and their newer games have direct IP address connection built in to them, in all actuality blizzard is working VERY hard to ensure that their customers are treated fairly.
But in this case it is a few good users with pockets that are just sitting there empty and a whole cadamaran of morons with pocket stuffed full of candy.
I think that recent events and legislation passed should have made it MORE then obvious that you cannot always directly apply 100% real life physical world law to the internet and that special rules and laws ARE needed for the internet.
In fact just a few years ago weren't a good deal of/. users asking for that kind of legislation? Ok so we didn't get what we originally planned upon, but at least we can stick to our guns and not make horrid metaphors between the real world and electronic actions.
IF A LOT OF KIDDIES DID NOT USE IT TO PLAY THEIR PIRATED VERSIONS OF BLIZZARD GAMES
Especially true now days with the Warcraft 3 beta (which blizzard is trying VERY hard to keep limited. Not succeeding very well, but they are TRYING hard.)
Blizzard allows A LOT of stuff to go on with their games, but. . ..
I think that the solution to this BEFORE HAND was that the computer community, huhrump, should have policed their own.
Though granted early court rulings in hacking cases kind of makes vigilantism hard to pull off.:(
On the seedier side of the web, nothing new folks. Just now its spyware instead of trojans, thats all. (oh wait there is a difference. . ..)
A lot of japanese h-anime sites (the less artistic ones, yes there is artistic hentai, get over it and deal.) use a dial up program of some sorts that I am (assuming) dials some sort of toll number, but it only works if you have a dial up modem, negates the need for a credit card though.
Some of the seedier US web sites I have seen actualy attempt to automaticaly do this to you (ouch) luckily enough I have a cable modem and I uninstalled my regular ol' modem quite a while ago. ^_^
My Japanese Tutor actualy had a related problem, (didn't look at porn, damn thing managed to spread anyways, VERY annoying). One of these toll programs (one of the less respectable variety) got on the computer and refused to go away, hooked on to everything.
Of course all of that fails to explain why more and more houses / condos / apartment complexs keep on being built. . . . (not to mention quickly occupied)
If there are no more 'new' people then why the hell are houses being torn down and apartment complexs then put up and filled to the brim so damn quickly?
Gameplay is horribly unbalanced, any time you can sit and shoot at some fool for 2 or 3 seconds at point blank range with a machine gun and have the poor asshole get up and move without a damn problem means that some Serious Balance Issues exist.
ID has this awful habit of making machine guns the 'least' powerful weapon in a game.
Bah.
50 or so rounds of lead into somebody should mean a dead somebody, not no living some'body.
Rocket suck too. What in the hell is up with the fire rate on thos things? Shiiity. BOom boom boom boom boom Lots of them and almost no damage. Half-Life had a MUCH better system in my opinion, you had to THINK about were you fired your damn rocket at. And think HARD. You didn't just go shooting off big ass explosives willy nilly, hell no.
Not that rocket jumping was impossible. If you started out from two stories up, fired a rocket, got it to hit'in the ground when you were one story up, the blast could propel you if you were REALLY good onto a third story ledge.
Course you'd have damn well no life left, but hell, THATS WHAT A ROCKET DOES TO YA.
Tau cannons for jumping, not no rockets.:) (fact annoyed me at first too, but you get used to it, no really, you do.)
Rockets ROCKED in Half-Life. Nice medium sized blast radius, and a reasonably long load time meant that you didn't just fire them indiscriminantly.
Of course having limited (arguable, nobody ever figured out if it was limited on purpose or if Valve just couldn't program a laser guidence routine worth a shit.:) ) laser guidability helped too, wooosh!
Hell even that was balanced, more then one fool thought he was going to be cleaver with a laser guided rocket up somebody ass until the person on the other side of that ass spotted a little red dot wandering around, whipped out their Cross-Boy and showed ol' rocket boy what well aimed precision can do to ya.
Shotguns in Quake3 also suck. A lot. HLDM has a shotgun that makes you feel like a man. Not some little loser carrying around a losers weapon, hell no. In HL your shotgun was your best friend. *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*. Damn near doubled as a room sweeper, until your aim totaly sucked, then some asshole with a pistol could easily finish you off.
Which was perhaps the greatest thing of all about Half-Life.
EVERY WEAPON WAS EQUALLY BALANCED
yet each successive one was more powerful then the last.
Let me repeat that for you stubborn ones out there who may be thinking that is impossible.
EVERY WEAPON WAS EQUALLY BALANCED
yet each successive one was more powerful then the last.
Yup, thats right. In the hands of a skilled Half-Life player ANY weapon could be used to defeat any other weapon with ease. Well mabye not with ease, but it was damn well fun.
I was witness to Crowbar masters who'd take on people with rocket launchers.
And win.
And who can forget the infamous sachel campers. Hell if you got hit by one of them you gave of a "nice kill!" rather then some lame-o scream about campers.
And when you spawned next to one guy with an MP5 and all you had was your little Pistol, no worries.
You could take the SOB. Cuz if you can't
well hell
If you can't take the SOB, you don't deserve to the damn frag now do ya? Hell you don't deserve to live, die and get your ass off that serve you little pussy, real men fight with anything they've got. You just got a Cross-Bow in a head to head fight? Well now you sure as hell better win it cuz if you don't you ain't worth play'in against now are ya?
Play hard play fast and play to have a shitpot load of fun.
Now excuse me I gotta go give spellcheck.net a seizure with this post.
Slashdot Mirror
Does anybody know of any GOOD front mount USB devices for a 5.25" bay? I DO NOT WANT one that includes a 5.25" to 3.5" adaptor, I have ENOUGH 3.5" bays in my full tower case, I just want to be able to plug in massive USB devices to the front of my computer. . . .
.
Bleh.
:(
The ONLY solution to this problem that I have been able to figure out so far would be to mount a regular old USB hub in one of the bays with some screws and some very careful drilling into the Hub itself (I have found some Hubs that are of about the right size and would fit in a 5.25" bay just nicely) but this is far from optimal. . .
I mean WTF am I supposed to do with a shitpot load of USB ports AND NO DAMN WAY TO ACCESS THEM. Well except for from behind my case, but already I have WAAAY to many wires back there and it is a royal pain in the arse to have to reach back around behind my computer and try and grope for something remotly resembling a USB port to plug some device in to. . . . It would be nice to be able to actualy see the port. ^_^
Yah but now HEs the number one result for that search on google. :)
Dark red text, black background.
... NEED. Especially in the case of the elderly, were an animal companion can easily be the reason to go on living. The fact that somebody else, someone else, even something else, needs you.
:) )
:(
The pain.
The paaain!
annnyways.
For many animals are not a mere luxury item, they are something that people
Of course many people these days have been raised to be completely self serving and thus have little if any knowledge of the warmth and joy that comes from helping another fellow living being. These people obviously do not benefit from animals and consider them a nuisance at best and in the worst cases even abuse them.
http://messybeast.com/emoticat.html is rather nice in that at least it admits that there is the potential that the more complex human emotions merely stem from the more basic simple emotions that all of the more advanced forms of mammals have. (That is by personal belief, as all complex human emotions can be traced directly down to their primitive roots with very little work).
You said that human emotions are the luxury of our advanced civilization, well after so many millennia of domestication, could not other animals have also developed more sophisticated emotions over time?
(well it is either that or they just spend a lot of time sleeping, take your pick.
Damnit now I want to run home and play with my dog, ugh. Classes in an hour so that is not an option.
When I was not but a small newborn babe, my family had a dog named Sady.
When ever it would be that I would cry, Sady would come over and lick my face to cheer me up. If that failed, then she would go and alert my (likely already busy making up a bottle or such) Mother and attempt to drag her over to my side so as to comfort me.
When a friend of the family came over one time and picked me up and threw me in the air (and caught me) Sady immediately jumped up and bared her teeth at the person, threatening him with harm should he attempt to (in her mind) threaten me again.
Later on in years I had a wonderful Cat. Whenever I would cry the Cat (I am omitting names from this point on so as to limit possibly identifying myself) would come over and sit on my lap or come up and wipe the tears from my face. If I was sick the Cat would sit by my side and wait for my recovery.
Do not tell me that either of those wonderful creatures was uncaring or had no emotions. Any creature that is capable of giving of themselves to another, or removing themselves from their own self gratifying actions so as to comfort another, has emotion, and more then that, is a damn deal better person then most people are.
I was discussing with my family the other day the question of why Dogs and Cats are not considered Sentient species (albiet of a lower level intelligence then Humans).
One of my dogs can understand when She is being refered to by Pronouns.
Now THAT is spooky.
"Is it time for her you know what?"
::dog proceeds to run over to the biscuit box::
Shnitz!
Annnyways.
The final conclusion was that we most likely do not consider other animals besides ourselfs to be sentient because of the legal and moral ramifications that it would bring up, it would be a royal pain in the ass to deal with and most people quite frankly just do not want to deal with those types of issues.
:(
No FF, no MGS,
.
Thus why I bought the game cube, no crappy overhyped games that can be beaten in a matter of days and yet you are expected to sit there and play for months. . .
Though I must admit that the GC games so far are FAR shorter then their N64 counterparts, Luigi's Mansion took me about three days to beat the first time through, Super Mario 64 took me around 6 or 7 months. . . . (then again, maybe I am just better at gaming now? ^_^ )
Hell the problem is the rich dip shits who pay those workers crap for wages so as to maximize a companie's profits.
Now if companies are made to be SELF SUPPORTING and STABLE rather then be expected to grow by 2-10% every year then the situation will get a lot better.
It would require other work of course, but the FIRST STEP is to stop this entire grab for greed that everybody is so darn obsessed with.
One doctrine believes that lawyers are full of nothing but shit and hot air, which if some way was found to extract the methane from would make for at least a halfway decent fuel. (I am not overly familiar with the combustive properties of methane so I cannot say what the efficiency rate would be on this idea.)
The other side believes that lawyers are pretty much hollow psuedo-forms running around in human shape. While they would not burn, they should not weigh to much either.
Perhaps we can take up a collection. I'm sure there's a sweatshop worker in Brazil who'll be thrilled to donate to the cause. After all, you paid his salary via Nike...
Having spent a good part of my childhood living below the poverty level, not to mention that I don't go to starbucks or drink coffee at all (too expensive, waste of resources, water please), and that the only Nike shoes I have owned in years were a pair of leather boots that cost me $60 and lasted a year and a half (and thats sayin something for shoes that take as much abuse as I dole out), which were the best value that I could find;
excuse me if I think that you are full of bullshit.
The damn beancounters are the REASON that people are stuck working in sweatshops, hell, when was the last time you saw a Nerd saying "Oh yah hey thats no problem, use slave labor if it'll save us a few bucks!"
Muahhahhahaha! Title says it all!
:)
Fuck the middle / upper class, let the Nerds rise up, w00t!
Anyway. In all seriousness, I DO believe that the only halfway decent hope for a future that this already royally f'ed up planet has is to let the academics in charge, but NOT the bureaucratic ones, because bureaucrats suck, something awful. And they blow. At the same time. Yes folks, bureaucrats blow AND suck.
They need to be shot into the moon with lawyers.
Oddly enough if you let the Nerds into control you would find yourself in a Globalization style of a world rather quickly, as Nerds generally don't give a fuck about things like artificial boundaries and what not. Hell just look at the Chess masters during the Cold War. . . . ^_^
(or Scientists during almost ANY war. The idea of cutting off science journal entries and such just because somebody was on an enemy side was / is abhorrent to the large majority of Scientists.)
Anyway. That is my own personal wacko socio-political theory, what's yours?
This is NOT about Blizzard losing money, if you KNEW the company at all then you would know that they value the integrity of their products far more then many other companies do.
/people/ get upset when they are deceived or lied too.
This is about a leaked beta, which Blizzard LOSING money over testing so thoroughly.
This is about Blizzard being pissed off that somebody LIED to them.
This is about TRUST between a Community and a Company.
Yah that is right, there are actual other PEOPLE on the other side of that Blizzard Entertainment name, not just some corporate suits. And these
If you see the Warcraft3 files online, then for crying out loud, send the person off a quick message nicely explaining how that Blizzard is a group of nice people who care about their customers and that they are not just some corporate drones who are trying to leech money from people and that would the person please remove their pirated file from share.
Now of course the message would need to be a bit longer, more explanatory, and in a friendly tone of voice then that, but all in all a message like that WOULD work.
There was actually a (short) period of time during which the pirates (or at least the crackers) and the small / independent software manufacturers had come to an agreement and people were not pirating (at least nearly as much) software from companies that believes software was to be made an actual Art form. But unfortunately the n00bs came and screwed this allll up and now we are back into the present situation of pirate everything in sight.
Which sucks.
I repeat, this is not about money, this is about integrity and that is the SOLE reason that I support Blizzard in any of this. Blizzard are a kick ass group of people who rock, a lot. They work hard, they make good products, and they CARE about their work. Anybody who cares about the integrity of what they create damn well deserves some respect.
Bah, stop using my own arguments from days past. :P
This is a debate about ARTISTS rights though, and the ARTIST has a right to how THEIR product is copied and / or shown.
Period.
Bnetd interfears with the artist's right to control the creation, it may not be the original intent of that, and indeed its original intent was to help legitimate purchasers and viewers of the art to be able to more fully enjoy the creation itself, but it has been perverted from that use.
Now then, if YOU can propose a solution to this problem which allows for Blizzard to maintain artistic control over their work and Bnetd to stay up and hangs the pirates out to dry, please be free to do so. Hell I am sure that Blizzad would be MORE then happy to save on the legal fees.
But until then this half assed stop gap measure is the best that is possible in a world full of dishonest jerks.
(this all coming from somebody who has trade in God only knows how much illegal data. . . .
-_- )
Oh well, at least I don't leak stuff.
->-
-o~-
"If Ford had another way of preventing theft, one that didn't feck up the world for everyone else, then I'd be all for them using that method"
You are forgeting that:
A: It is there product, they can DO whatever they want with it. I did not say that they should get laws passed demanding that ALL vechicals follow these 'standards', and indeed if you look at how Blizzard is proceeding with this case you will see that THEY ARE NOT TRYING TO CRAM LAWS DOWN EVERYBODIES THROAT
Really now, ALL that Blizzard is asking is for Control over there software. Blizzard does NOT have anything against the people who make Bnetd, they just realize that unfortunatly as long as Bnetd continues to exist that people will have an easy and free way to use products pirated from Blizzard.
A lot of things made with good intent have been subverted to being used for darkness, and in as such those items have been outlawed, good intentions or not.
We (the Nerd community in general) could easily take it back if the majority of us didn't have such damn argumentative and subservient natures. :(
/. ) believe that the reducing the time to program something is more important then reducing the SIZE of that which is being programmed? Seriously, does anybody here even realize anymore that a fully featured word processing suite need not take up over 100megabytes? Or even over 2 megabytes? Or hell even over ONE megabyte?
I mean hell, an ORGANIZED security attack upon the infostructure of the commercial entities operating on the net, not to mention various companies that have chosen to foolishly put all of (or the majority of) their assets (employee records and such) online or on to internet routable machines would ensure a quick and swift victory over the forces of commercialism.
Of course too many potential Nerds have been taken in by the false dreams of big business and their promises to middle manage everything to perfection. The fact that VBscript is considered a 'language on the way up' is evidenced of this.
The darned thing is that an organized attack from both the inside and the outside of companies could easily either take them down or dehabilitate them for a long enough period of time to allow for open source alternatives to take a foothold. Even complete system backups would be a bit hard to retrieve if all of a companies assets had just been invested, say, Russian plutonium mines.
It is not that hard to get an agent on the inside of even a company like Microsoft either. Once access to the internal network has been gained a good deal of the security is gone, granted while I am sure that MS has good security inside of their compound itself, the fact is that a dedicated agent COULD and CAN gain complete or near complete control over their systems.
Hell Microsoft takes on numerous interns every year, often times in tech support or repair roles. Even an office lackey would have significant freedom of movement over a designated area.
Surely one or two just out of highschool Nerds can be found who have social engineering skills of some sort and reside nearby an Microsoft compound? It is not like MS has just one (though the largest goal of Redmond should of course be kept in mind.)
The the main issue at heart is really the lack of consensus amongst internet Nerds in general. Far too many have been brainwashed by the propaganda put out by the big businesses. Hell look at how many people (even on
Until we gain regain our consensus over such simple and in the past considered trivial issues, we will not be able to unite against the forces of those that oppose us, and in fact it could be said that those that oppose us are indeed the ones who have fragmented our groupings to begin with.
In a day in age where code can be measured in millions of lines, is it no wonder that the great society of Nerds that had been built up is so quickly falling?
We had taken (have taken, past or present. . . . and hopefully not into the future) too much pride in our creations, we tried to show them to the world, but then when they would not look we committed one of the ultimate mistakes, we tried to appeal to their greed.
We said not how computers could make life easier for all, but rather how they could 'increase worker productivity'. We said not how cancer could be cured, but rather how upgrade cycles could be created so that an industry could spring up designed soley to leech off of the artificially created need of the very market of which it had created.
And when they did not listen, nay, when they did not understand that which we had created was none less then a work of art, we instead lowered not but itself, but ourselves along with it, down to the levels of mere machinations by selling our creations off as thus. We have created our own end, and if that end is to be adverted we must create our own new beginning.
I would rather leave my bag at the front desk / entrance / or where ever when I enter a store with valuable goods in it then be watched by security cameras all over the place. *COUGH* britan *COUGH*.
Of course the third PERFERABLE alternative and the one that I am fighting for here, is that I would MUCH RATHER just beat the assholes who steal in the first place quite senseless.
(ignoring all misdeeds commited earlier then, err, say, uh, hmm. Ok well beat the snot out of people who steal software made by socialy responsable companies, how does that sound instead? Heh)
Agreed, you have the right to do WHATEVER YOU WANT to your software ON YOUR COMPUTER.
And indeed many things are allowed on your own PRIVATE property that you cannot do OFF of your private property. A person can have their 11 year old son drive around in a tractor if they want too, no problem. They can make their own lock-picking tools and practice with them day and night, hey no issues. Hell they can setup a practice range and teach their offspring how to shoot a man dead from 100 paces. Nobody gives a fuck.
But there is some stuff that you don't do in the real world.
The sale of various theft equipment in real life is quite illegal. Sure it has LEGITIMATE uses, and indeed the lesser equipment (which is in capable SKILLED hands just as capable as the more automated tools are) is legal for public sale, but if you want the automated stuff you'll have to build it yourself and NOT sell it or distribute it in any form to the public at large.
Which is quite all-right and ensures that 'idle crimes' do not rise too high if not in numbers then at least in sophistication.
Now imagine if Ford offered FREE service on all their vehicles. Period.
Now imagine that Ford had some method by which to ensure that vehicles worked on were not stolen.
Imagine were the STOLEN vehicles would be serviced at? That is right, the unauthorized service centers. Sure some (or even quite a lot) of people with LEGAL vehicles might go to the unauthorized service centers, hell maybe at times it is just more convenient, but the BEST way for Ford to (help) stop the theft of vehicles is to shutdown the unauthorized service centers.
Vehicles that can only be driven until they break down are of hardly any use, and in the case of software, well hell if ya can't play it online to begin with. . . . Who steals a car just to drive it around in circles out in their back yard?
There have been a plethora of holes in various versions of IE that have allowed unsigned activeX controls to install without the users permission, or to install under a differnt name ("want to upgrade to the latest version of Flash? Sure, ok! Enjoy some pay-for-view porn while you are at it!).
Pirates are notoriously horrid at keeping things going for an extended period of time on a regular consistent basis (with a few quasi-pirate exceptions in relationship to some nottobenamed Windows software that totalyandcompleatlyrocks).
I believe that the main goal of this is to ensure that FUTURE Blizzard titles do not have to worry about this problem.
Of course if Blizzard even TRIES to implement a pay for service system after this they are going to be ROYALY screwed. This is perhaps the ONE major limitor that Blizzard is placing upon itself by this action, they are limiting their future capability to make adjustments to their current B.net system. They wouldn't last half a second, a group of royaly pissed off users would drag out the old bnetd source code and update it to whatever level is needed.
But besides that, if the lawsuit goes through Blizzard should pretty much be worry free in relation to this particular type of threat from pirates.
Of course this STILL doesn't stop CD-KEY gens.
Unfortunatly fewer and fewer people are able to succesfuly figure out how to make Keygens as the average intelligence of software pirates seems to keep on dropping. Patchs to the executable seem to be far more popular, but those tend to disable network play more often then not, and when they do not it normaly requires a massivly large amount of work to get things that way.
Course some of us aren't so self centered as to think that we should be able to do anything that we please. . . .
The library doesn't allow drinks in it, should I say that I am offended by their accusations that I will spill water on the books I am reading?
The no bags rule does not SINGLE OUT YOU as a theif nor does it IMPLY that you are a theif, rather it simply implies that some dickheads in the past stole some books and that now the privilage has been revoked.
On the plus side there is a very low occurance of theft on this campus and I feel safe leaving my bag alone for decently long periods of time (10-20 minutes or so) even with a good amount of gear in there. Peer pressure worked to reduce on campus theft, too bad it had not come into effect sooner or bags might still be allowed in the bookroom.
Bags are not allowed in my collages book store, for precisly this reason.
/. users asking for that kind of legislation? Ok so we didn't get what we originally planned upon, but at least we can stick to our guns and not make horrid metaphors between the real world and electronic actions.
And nobody complains.
Blizzard already allows A TON of freedom with their product, and indeed it is not like they are charging a monthly fee for playing their games online, and their newer games have direct IP address connection built in to them, in all actuality blizzard is working VERY hard to ensure that their customers are treated fairly.
But in this case it is a few good users with pockets that are just sitting there empty and a whole cadamaran of morons with pocket stuffed full of candy.
I think that recent events and legislation passed should have made it MORE then obvious that you cannot always directly apply 100% real life physical world law to the internet and that special rules and laws ARE needed for the internet.
In fact just a few years ago weren't a good deal of
BNETD would likely not have come under fire
.
:(
IF A LOT OF KIDDIES DID NOT USE IT TO PLAY THEIR PIRATED VERSIONS OF BLIZZARD GAMES
Especially true now days with the Warcraft 3 beta (which blizzard is trying VERY hard to keep limited. Not succeeding very well, but they are TRYING hard.)
Blizzard allows A LOT of stuff to go on with their games, but. . .
I think that the solution to this BEFORE HAND was that the computer community, huhrump, should have policed their own.
Though granted early court rulings in hacking cases kind of makes vigilantism hard to pull off.
On the seedier side of the web, nothing new folks. Just now its spyware instead of trojans, thats all. (oh wait there is a difference. . . .)
A lot of japanese h-anime sites (the less artistic ones, yes there is artistic hentai, get over it and deal.) use a dial up program of some sorts that I am (assuming) dials some sort of toll number, but it only works if you have a dial up modem, negates the need for a credit card though.
Some of the seedier US web sites I have seen actualy attempt to automaticaly do this to you (ouch) luckily enough I have a cable modem and I uninstalled my regular ol' modem quite a while ago. ^_^
My Japanese Tutor actualy had a related problem, (didn't look at porn, damn thing managed to spread anyways, VERY annoying). One of these toll programs (one of the less respectable variety) got on the computer and refused to go away, hooked on to everything.
Nasty stuff.
Doesn't explain the number of white middle class'ers who keep on mowing over everything. . . . (literaly and figurativly)
.
The pop numbers may say they are all immigrants, but I see most of the new development going up in white middle class neighborhoods. . .
Not to mention all the f*cking condos!
Of course all of that fails to explain why more and more houses / condos / apartment complexs keep on being built. . . . (not to mention quickly occupied)
If there are no more 'new' people then why the hell are houses being torn down and apartment complexs then put up and filled to the brim so damn quickly?
Quake3 is for pussies.
:)
:) ) laser guidability helped too, wooosh!
Period.
Gameplay is horribly unbalanced, any time you can sit and shoot at some fool for 2 or 3 seconds at point blank range with a machine gun and have the poor asshole get up and move without a damn problem means that some Serious Balance Issues exist.
ID has this awful habit of making machine guns the 'least' powerful weapon in a game.
Bah.
50 or so rounds of lead into somebody should mean a dead somebody, not no living some'body.
Rocket suck too. What in the hell is up with the fire rate on thos things? Shiiity. BOom boom boom boom boom Lots of them and almost no damage. Half-Life had a MUCH better system in my opinion, you had to THINK about were you fired your damn rocket at. And think HARD. You didn't just go shooting off big ass explosives willy nilly, hell no.
Not that rocket jumping was impossible. If you started out from two stories up, fired a rocket, got it to hit'in the ground when you were one story up, the blast could propel you if you were REALLY good onto a third story ledge.
Course you'd have damn well no life left, but hell, THATS WHAT A ROCKET DOES TO YA.
Tau cannons for jumping, not no rockets.
(fact annoyed me at first too, but you get used to it, no really, you do.)
Rockets ROCKED in Half-Life. Nice medium sized blast radius, and a reasonably long load time meant that you didn't just fire them indiscriminantly.
Of course having limited (arguable, nobody ever figured out if it was limited on purpose or if Valve just couldn't program a laser guidence routine worth a shit.
Hell even that was balanced, more then one fool thought he was going to be cleaver with a laser guided rocket up somebody ass until the person on the other side of that ass spotted a little red dot wandering around, whipped out their Cross-Boy and showed ol' rocket boy what well aimed precision can do to ya.
Shotguns in Quake3 also suck. A lot. HLDM has a shotgun that makes you feel like a man. Not some little loser carrying around a losers weapon, hell no. In HL your shotgun was your best friend. *BAM* *BAM* *BAM*. Damn near doubled as a room sweeper, until your aim totaly sucked, then some asshole with a pistol could easily finish you off.
Which was perhaps the greatest thing of all about Half-Life.
EVERY WEAPON WAS EQUALLY BALANCED
yet each successive one was more powerful then the last.
Let me repeat that for you stubborn ones out there who may be thinking that is impossible.
EVERY WEAPON WAS EQUALLY BALANCED
yet each successive one was more powerful then the last.
Yup, thats right. In the hands of a skilled Half-Life player ANY weapon could be used to defeat any other weapon with ease. Well mabye not with ease, but it was damn well fun.
I was witness to Crowbar masters who'd take on people with rocket launchers.
And win.
And who can forget the infamous sachel campers. Hell if you got hit by one of them you gave of a "nice kill!" rather then some lame-o scream about campers.
And when you spawned next to one guy with an MP5 and all you had was your little Pistol, no worries.
You could take the SOB. Cuz if you can't
well hell
If you can't take the SOB, you don't deserve to the damn frag now do ya? Hell you don't deserve to live, die and get your ass off that serve you little pussy, real men fight with anything they've got. You just got a Cross-Bow in a head to head fight? Well now you sure as hell better win it cuz if you don't you ain't worth play'in against now are ya?
Play hard play fast and play to have a shitpot load of fun.
Now excuse me I gotta go give spellcheck.net a seizure with this post.